


Dear Dumbass Diary

by riversfire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amelia Novak's A+ Parenting, Anorexia, Canon Compliant, Diary/Journal, Foster Care, Gen, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, No Smut, Novak Family, Novak Feels, POV Claire Novak, Past Character Death, just vaguely mentioned in reference to Amelia, lots of talk about death and sad things just be prepared for that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7470210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riversfire/pseuds/riversfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jody wants Claire to give therapy a try. But when Claire refuses to tell the truth about her past, the therapist must take a new approach. How about a diary?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

Dear Dumbass Diary,

Jody’s making me go to therapy. She thinks there’s something wrong with me, and I guess she’s probably right. I agreed so she’ll stop nagging me about it, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. If I tell the truth I’ll just end up institutionalized. Everyone will think I’m crazy, just like my dad. Guess it runs in the family. Anyway, I went, didn’t talk, got yelled at, now I have to keep a diary because I apparently have problems opening up about my past and my feelings or some shit. Whatever. I’ll show them where they can stick their feelings.

I’m supposed to start at the beginning. The beginning of what, I don’t even know. But I guess this is mine. 

I used to live in a house with blue walls. They were mostly light gray, really, but when it was dark I would imagine them blue because it made me feel safe. Like an idiot kid. Which I guess is what I was, so… blue walls. Blue walls with white trim. But that was before. I’ve since learned not to think of them at all when I can help it, but for some reason those walls are the first thing I think of when I let myself go back to before. Probably a side effect of being homeless.

I grew up in Pontiac Illinois. Quiet street, good school, played with dolls until I was eleven. I was “blessed” with a really religious family—mom, dad, and me. Went to Sunday school every week, said grace before every meal. But again, that was before. 

I keep coming back to that, like there’s some sort of tangible divide between normal life and when everything went to shit. I was a kid, so maybe there is and I just didn’t notice it. When did my mom start losing weight she didn’t need to? When did my dad start to seem distant and distracted? 

I guess you could say it was the night my father left that everything really changed. My mother told me once later, during a breakdown where she said it was all her fault, that they had argued that night. That was the only time she ever really talked about it. Just that once. I was oblivious to whatever argument had or hadn’t driven him out. I was up in my room while it happened. But I remember the last thing he said to me. “I am not your father.” And then he walked away.

I wasn’t confused, although I guess I should have been. I thought that was his way of telling me he didn’t love me anymore. I thought it was my fault that he left.

My mother told me many times over the year after he left that he had gone mad. Crazy. But I knew that if he was crazy, it was me that made him that way. Because I wasn’t the good girl he and God wanted me to be. I prayed so much that year to bring him back. I thought that if he came back, everything would be better. Mom would be better. 

I was wrong. When he came back there was snow on the ground and I thought it was a goddamn Christmas miracle. Mom explained that we had to be careful around him in case he was still crazy, or something like that anyway. I didn’t care, I was just excited to have him back. We ate roast beef sandwiches for dinner and he cried. He said he was just so happy. And then the doorbell rang. It was Roger, who was my dad’s best friend before. He’d been watching over us since dad left so I knew him well enough. While mom and dad talked to him in the front room, I smiled into my sandwich because everything was going to be okay. And then I heard sounds like crunching and squelching, and then shouting. “He’s a demon! He’s a demon, run!” I didn’t run, until mom came running in and grabbed me from my chair, pulling me with her as she hurtled past. I remember I tried to put my sandwich back on my plate and missed, smearing mustard onto my mom’s white sweater as the whole thing burst apart and I was whisked away into the pantry closet. 

Mom pushed me around behind her. I was crushed between her back and the wall and shelf beside us as dad followed us in and began tearing through the shelves, saying something I couldn’t follow. The scariest thing was hearing him swear, because that was something I never heard back then. And then mom starting swearing too, telling him to stay the hell away from us. And then he grabbed her, or she grabbed him, I’m still not sure, and then she was telling me to run and I did. I didn’t know where I was running to, but that didn’t matter because I didn’t get there. 

Roger stopped me easily and pulled me around in front of him, putting a knife to my throat and laughing. He said, “I told you I’d gut the bitch” and I didn’t even realize he was talking about me until later. I stood perfectly still as the knife dug into my skin and I watched as Roger’s wife jumped out from behind my dad, forcing him to the ground and punching him repeatedly in the face. When she turned around her eyes were black, and my heart lurched into my throat and made me dizzy. And then there was a burst of noise, some gruff voices and a flurry of movement as everything turned inside out. The next thing I remember, I was running out the door with my dad. I was shoved into the backseat of a car in between my parents and we drove away.

The saviors with the gruff voices turned out to be two men in flannel. We drove for what seemed like hours in the dark with them at the wheel. I think there was talking but I couldn’t hear anything over the rush of pressure like screaming in my head as the tears squeezed their way out of my eyes. I cried so hard and so silently that my head started to ache from the effort, and I eventually fell into a sort of sleep crushed against my mother’s side.

When I woke up, it had been decided that my mother and I would drive somewhere safe, and my father would not be coming with us. The goodbyes were quick. He said, “Take care of your mom, okay Bub?” and then he was gone. But I couldn’t take care of her. Because she wasn’t her anymore. She was a demon now too. And she slapped my face and called me bitch, and I was just too tired to fight. She put me in the stolen car and drove. I had heard about girls who were kidnapped and I was sure I would never be found. But then she called my dad and told him that if he wanted me back, he just had to come and meet us. So I just had to wait. The demon took me to an empty warehouse and we waited. She tied me to a chair and I cowered under the ropes like the little girl I was until there was a sound outside. It turned out to be more demons and she left me alone to go talk to them. And that’s when he came.

At first all I felt was pain. I thought it was just my headache coming back stronger, but then it turned into a voice. He said his name was Castiel. Castiel was the root of all our problems. But I didn’t know that. So when he told me he was an angel and a friend of my father, I believed him. And when he told me he was proud of me and my faith, and that he needed me, I said yes.

After that, it was like I was watching the world from the other side of the glass in an aquarium twenty feet deep with water. I watched my father get shot. I watched as Castiel laid my hands on the demons’ heads and destroyed them in a bright light. I watched as a cloud of black smoke billowed from my mother’s lips and sank away into nothing. I watched as my father begged Castiel to take him instead of me and Castiel promised him a thousand painful years in return. And then the water was gone and I sucked in a breath of copper and ash and destruction. And it was my life.

We never went back to the house with the blue walls and the white trim. 

\- Claire


	2. After the Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I guess once you've had an angel inside of you, everything just gets... Different. I just wasn't the same."

Dear Dumbass Diary,

 

Sorry it’s taken me so long to write again, I just wasn’t looking forward to crying like an idiot. It was harder than I thought to write all that stuff. I mean, it was easy to write it, because I’ve relieved it a hundred times in my head. But it was hard to see it out there and feel it… 

Hold on, why the hell am I apologizing to a piece of paper? I feel like a 12-year-old. Fuck you diary, I don’t have to apologize to you.

Jesus.

So. I guess I should get back to “exploring the trauma in my past” or whatever. Because apparently my therapist is going to ask me about my "progress" every week.

After pretty much the worst night of my life, we went to my grandma’s house. Looking back we probably should have gone to a hospital, or at least slept in the stolen car or something, cuz I’m pretty sure we were in shock. But we didn’t. We went straight to Gran’s and knocked on the door in the wee hours of the morning, huddled together on the porch as we watched the rising sun glint off the old snow. It’s weird, it’s like neither of us really cared about anything. I guess if I had to describe it, I’d just say we were tired. We went there because that’s where dad had told us to go. Or maybe we went there because mom knew it was the only place she could leave me when she took off. I don’t know.

But Gran took us in without even a question. Well, I suppose she probably asked questions, but I don’t know because she sent me to bed immediately. I didn’t sleep. Some people don’t know this, but the adrenaline stays with you after something like that. Or something does anyway. It was like I was too tired to sleep. Too tired to do anything. The next morning I stayed in bed until the afternoon, pretending to sleep when people came to check on me. I don’t know why. I suppose because it’s what I thought I was supposed to be doing. Or because I didn’t want to look up and see black eyes laughing at me. 

And they just left me there. I came out on my own when I heard the clink of dinner. I was hungry and I figured I was probably supposed to eat. 

Mom was sitting at the table, blinking at the tea in her hands while Gran set food and plates around her. Dinner that night was quiet. Not the quietest we would ever have, but pretty damn quiet. That was one thing about our life together after. No one wanted to talk about it. Actually, mom had always been quiet. Gran was pretty much the same. But I wasn’t quiet before my life went to shit. I used to ask questions, get excited about stuff. And then I just didn’t anymore.

I guess once you've had an angel inside of you, everything just gets... Different. I just wasn't the same. Even after winter break ended and I went back to school. It was the same school, the same teachers and students, but I was different. I couldn’t do my homework anymore, I was suddenly failing all my classes—which was really lame actually because I used to be fucking smart. I started to drift away from all of my friends. I actually kind of stopped talking at all for a while.

We didn't stay at Gran's that whole time. We got a little apartment. The walls were this ugly yellow color. Mom had some company move our stuff over. Well, some of it. Most of it actually got sold. Well, maybe not most. I found out later that my mom had kept a ton of my dad's stuff in a storage locker. In case he came back again, I guess. (Spoiler, he didn't). Anyway. She tried to sell the house (I think). It was the recession, the market had crashed, the housing bubble had burst, or whatever all that crap was. I say I think she tried because maybe she didn't. You, know, in case he came back. (Do I even have to say it?) Because that's where he would go if he did. I don't know if she held onto it on purpose, but I do know she drove out of her way to go past it pretty much every day. Until she didn't. Because she left. 

She didn’t tell me where she was going. Or when she was coming back. She quit her job or got fired, I don’t know. Either way I wouldn’t be surprised because she sucked at it, to be honest. She sucked at everything after Dad/Cas left again. And when she lost her job she couldn't pay for the apartment and the house and everything else. So she moved us back to Gran's. Well. Moved me and our stuff. Dropped me off and then left to "find herself."

So it was me and Gran. Which was fine on a practical level, since mom was never really all there anyway. Also, I ate much better with Gran. (Did I tell you how mom didn't eat? And I think she resented that I did.) But on like, an emotional level, it was really shitty. Like, you know, that was two parents now that I drove away. That I wasn’t enough for. That I couldn’t get to stay. 

When she left, I knew she wasn’t coming back. Cuz they never did. I kind of pretended that I forgot about her. Like I had never had parents or something. She wasn’t coming back, so why carry on like she was? Although, after Gran died, I actually did entertain the thought. I told the police that they could just leave me at Gran’s, since mom would be coming back any day now. I’m still not sure whether it was a lie, or if I believed it. Apparently they didn’t believe it--since I couldn’t tell them her whereabouts or even her phone number (she’d stopped calling a good ten months earlier--and though she had been sending postcards, the return address from her last one wasn't enough). I guess they couldn’t find her either, the idiots. I don’t know if she even knew that Gran was dead. I didn’t know if I wanted her to know. 

It was a heart attack. Did you know that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women? One day I came home from school and she was dead. I was fifteen, and I did not know what to do with a dead body. So called 911, because that's what I figured you were supposed to do, and calmly told them "it's my grandmother. I think she's dead." And they came and took her away. And then they came and took me away. It didn't occur to me to try to stop them.

Someone said that the only thing constant in life is change. No one knows that like a kid in the foster system. But I can’t keep saying “and that was when everything changed” like it’s some big thing. Because yeah, things changed after Gran died. But not really, because I just kept going in the same direction. Barreling down to hell. Shit just got worse and worse.

\- Claire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, said "change is the only constant in life."


	3. The Lost Years

Dear Dumbass,

Therapy sucks. 

But it’s also kind of interesting.

Like, it's funny how some memories you fixate on... And other memories you just forget. It's actually weird to think about some parts of my life then. I mean, it's like maybe it happened to somebody else? I'm just not that person anymore. Which if I'm being honest (which is the point of this whole stupid diary thing, right?) that kind of scares me. Because as much as I hated her, that bitch was tough.

I guess I'm worried that if I can forget how bad it was, I might forget how to deal with shit when it gets bad again. Because shit always gets bad. And I have to be ready for when it does. It's like Sam said. Family might not always be there. I can't forget that.

Nobody should know that better than me.

After Gran died, it was a whirl of foster homes. I ran away from the first one they placed me in. I just snapped, I think. I just couldn’t be around these people, who didn’t know about angels and demons and who treated me like I was some poor little kid who couldn’t deal with death. It wasn’t death I couldn’t deal with. It was living. Living in a house of strangers who just didn’t fucking KNOW anything. 

The first night I spent on the street was… weird. Pontiac isn’t really a great place to be homeless. Well, not the suburban area, anyway. Can’t panhandle, for one; there’s nowhere to go that doesn’t belong to someone else. I didn’t know anything about shelters or anything, not that I would have gone there. I couldn’t risk getting caught and brought back. The first place I went was the park. I hadn’t planned it or anything, I just up and left, went where my angry steps carried me. It wasn’t a neighborhood I was familiar with. I sat on top of a picnic table for a while. But there were streetlights and I felt exposed. I found myself whipping my head around at every car that passed, having to duck down repeatedly so that I wouldn’t be caught in the glare of the headlights of some suspicious soccer mom. Eventually, I gave it up. Ended up on some running trail that went through the woods at the back of the park. 

I didn’t sleep at all that night. Every shadow was a demon and they were all looking for me. I should have stuck it out, though. My mistake was going back into the park. Apparently the park is the go-to spot for drug deals at 3am or something, cuz as soon as I got to the picnic table, the cops showed up, trawling for perps. They took me back to the house. It was scarier than the demons.

I didn’t stay with that family long. They were nice, actually, had a little girl. Actually, they were probably the best family I ever had. But they weren’t equipped to deal with a runaway, so they sent me back. And suddenly that’s what I was. A runaway. Once a runaway, always a runaway I guess.

After that I ran away from pretty much every house they put me in. Including the group homes. Breaking out of the group home was a game. Everybody did it. And I was the fucking best. There was a room in solitary with my name on it; literally, because I carved it there with a nail I hid in my shoe. It got taken away and I lost TV privileges for a month, but at least everyone who came after me would know Claire Novak was a badass. 

And I was a badass.

See, you have to be proud of the shit you’ve done. Because when it gets real bad, you’re either proud or you’re nothing. Empty. So you can be proud and full of anger, or you can be drowning on air and as good as dead. 

I met Dustin because of the stunt with the nail. He got put in isolation because he wouldn’t eat. I know, such a caring system. Good ol' Sandy. Anyway I saw him later and when he found out I was the Claire on the wall, he got this goofy smile on his face. He was my first friend there actually. I didn’t start talking to people until I had a reason to, and he was my reason. I wanted him to have friends, so I tried to find some. 

When I started talking to people, that’s when I found out the good places to go around town. Places that would take in runaways and wouldn’t ask questions. Well, they weren’t “good” places. But I wasn’t going to do the whole cliché, sleeping under a bridge thing. There weren’t any “good” bridges in Pontiac anyway, so it was whatever. 

The place I spent the most time was this little rat hole in the bad part of town. Next to a tattoo parlor. That’s where I got my tattoo actually. Not the parlor—the rat hole. There was this guy that was staying there that wanted to be a tattoo artist one day. He was nice, actually, and he had some of his own equipment. It wasn’t sanitary but Jody made me get tested when I got here, so I know I didn’t get AIDs or anything.

It was one of my best memories from that place. It was dumb as shit. I think I liked that it made me feel older. I always wanted to be older. Like it gave me more control. Now I’ve been thinking, it was probably the other way around. I grew up too fast. And it didn’t give me anything. 

Something happened and I couldn’t stay there anymore. It turns out people don’t just do things for free. I got into something bad with the guy who owned the place.  
What do you want me to say? That there are worse things that can happen to a girl than losing her entire family? Maybe there are.

I finally grew up though. As it turns out, the line between childhood and adulthood is having someone else’s tongue in your mouth. 

So I left. I ran away and hid for a week in case he came looking for me. I don’t know if he did, I never saw him again. 

I was snuggled up to the side of a dumpster when Randy found me. I hadn’t eaten in a long time. Maybe days. I had finally become my mother, I guess.

I remember thinking, Randy was what angels were *supposed* to be. 

Honestly, fuck him. 

I mean, he didn’t deserve to die like that, probably. But the point still stands.

I never found out what happened to Dustin.

\- Claire

 

PS I’m supposed to be doing lists and goals now.

How to be a badass:  
\- Stay alive


	4. The Runaways

Dear Dumbass,

I wonder how much of what we do and are is hereditary. I found out that angel vessels run in families from the book Dean gave me. So I’m one because my dad was one. And if I ever have kids, they might be too. I don’t think I’ll ever have kids.

I wonder if running is hereditary? Dad ran; mom ran. Will I? I know that Jody has been good to me. Much better than I deserve. And Alex… she’s something else. But sometimes I just feel like I don’t belong. Like I better fuckin run before they get to know me. Sometimes it’s not about them at all. It’s just that I feel like I’m drowning and that if I stop fighting to get to the surface, I’ll die.

I spent two years of my life running. Running from the law, from foster families and group homes; from every box they tried to put me in, real or imagined. It’s just in me. 

I think about that night that Dad came home for the last time. They told me to run and I did. Maybe I never figured out how to stop.

I ran from Cas for a long time. Poor guy. I dunno why he cares so much. He just feels bad I guess. Well. I made him feel bad. But we’re cool now. Well, no we’re not. But we’re better. So maybe he doesn’t feel so bad anymore. I mean, you can tell when someone feels bad for you. I get it a lot, so I fuckin know. But Cas is different. I think he just feels bad all the time. Like, for everything. But we talk sometimes, over skype even, and I see how many times I can get him to smile. It’s rare, but it happens now. It didn’t used to.

Cas is… complicated. Like, I don’t know what he is to me. I don’t even really know what he IS. I’m not sure he knows either. 

It’s especially weird because, like, I know he didn’t care before? When I was a kid, he just… didn’t care. I let him in and you’d think that… sharing a body would… like… mean that you know each other. But he was just a fuzzy dream to me, like water on fire, or a star, how the light touches your eyes but nothing else. And I was just a… a body to him. 

So when I saw him again, it was weird. I didn’t know what else to do but use him back. But, I guess it’s like in Harry Potter, like, there are some things you just can’t go through without becoming friends. Actually Cas explained it to me once, how shared experiences of pain build stronger bonds of cohesion or some shit. I asked him why God was so wacko for punishment. He didn’t answer.

He does that a lot. But I put up with him anyway.

Also, can you believe Jody has never even met him? I mean, I guess you can’t believe anything because you’re a piece of paper. But I can’t believe it. For how much he talks about the Winchesters I’m surprised he ever leaves them alone long enough for them to visit without him. Also why does he do that? I mean, I know we don’t talk that often, but he always says he hopes to see me soon, so why doesn’t he just come?

It’s like, I have all these people in my life who act like they want to be my fake parents or whatever, but it feels like all they really want to do is control me. Like, they never want to come visit me, they just want to tell me what to do and get mad at me about school, or hunting, or my attitude, or fucking everything about me.

Actually. Cas hasn’t called in a really long time. Maybe he’s running again. I know he does that too.

Maybe everyone runs away in the end.

Shit.

I want to talk about my mom. 

My mom was… I don’t know. I mean, I loved my mom. I have these memories, of going to the park with her, or of her making me help her cook on Sundays. They’re good memories.

For such a long time, I thought of my mom as empty. Just a hole in my life. Someone who felt so little for me that she left. Someone who didn’t have anything left inside her. She was strong, though. A lot stronger than I thought.

I have nightmares about when I found her. I don’t know why, because it’s not like I could lose her again. She’s already gone. Cas says she’s in heaven. I think I believe him.

She went through a lot. She was starving thin. She’d always been thin. Always been starving, probably. But never like that. Her skin was grayish and her hair was stringy and she smelled like death even before he killed her. She smelled like blood, after. 

I wouldn’t have got through it if they weren’t there. If Cas wasn’t. I don’t know what I would have done, but I wouldn’t have got through it. It’s too much. It’s too fucking much to have to know that shit and be alone. I’d seen a lot before that, but at least I didn’t KNOW it like I knew it then. At least I didn’t have to see my father die. But I saw my mother die and I didn’t know how much of her was me until she was gone. And there I was, like half a person. I didn’t know who I was any more. What does it mean to lose your parents? I thought I should feel alone, but I didn’t. Because they were there. Cas, and Dean, and Sam. I was an orphan among orphans. Like a party. Welcome to adulthood, your parents are dead. You’re in the club. At least we had each other. Or, I had them. I don’t think they really need me. Not like I needed them. Maybe Cas needs me, I dunno. Maybe Jody does. Or Alex. 

Maybe someone out there needs me. Needs to be saved. 

I kept the sword that killed my mother. Because you know what, I deserved it. And because I’m not running anymore. These angels, demons, monsters, sons of bitches. They’re a thing that happened to me. Now I’m going to be a thing that happens to them.

I’m going to be a hunter. 

I’ve already started training. For real. Jody took me and Alex shooting the other day. She says if I think I'm gonna be a hunter, I better at least do it well. I told her I know how to shoot a gun, which I do, although the lack of holes in the targets might suggest otherwise. At least I did better than Alex; now if she could kill with an eyeroll, she’d be set. Kids these days. Look, I know she's been through a lot and she needs some distance. But monsters don't play that game. They don't care. They could come for her at any time and she needs to be prepared. We all do.

I'm gonna go again next week. I think I'll try and get Alex to come too.

\- Claire

 

Lists and goals:  
1) Call Cas  
2) Get Alex pumped about shooting guns  
a. Make her watch some movies with sexy girls with guns  
3) Actually go shooting again, obviously  
4) Finish reading the angel book/ask Cas about the Enochian crap  
5) Apologize to Jody about being a bitch lately  
6) Stop being such a goddamn sap

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for updates--you can follow me on tumblr at [lunellumcas](http://www.lunellumcas.tumblr.com) if you want.


End file.
